Metamorphosis Mondays

Join me here on Mondays, where I'll share some words that are changing me for the better...

I just started reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.  I can't get over the way her style simultaneously fills my desire for poetry and for story, and hints at the deeper thrum of what is going on beneath our seeing.  Here's an excerpt...

Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain.  But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary that sings on the skull.  Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.  About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four story building.  It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.  The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped.  His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through empty air.  Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass.  I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight.  The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest.  The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them.  The least we can do is try to be there.   

 

 

July 4th, No Accidents, and Real Equality

We celebrated July 4th yesterday in pretty typical fashion: people pennant-clad in red, white, and blue; a massive barbecue boasting hamburgers, potato chips, ice cream, and stuffed stomachs; and from the car windows on the late drive home, glimpses of the few fireworks sanctioned by the city (numerous fires still burn throughout our state, so individual fireworks were a big no-no this year).
Yet there were eccentricities to our celebration as well (because, you know, normal is something we just don't do around here).  Present at the barbecue were people from Iraq, Kenya, Vietnam, Libya, Korea, France, China, and Germany, to name a few.  Only a handful were even American citizens.  Most were college students who had traveled to America to earn a degree, and a number planned to return to their native countries after graduating so they could support their families.
It was the American fellow, the young man named Dave who was studying medicine so he could work in Afghanistan and heal the wounds of a war-torn nation, who said it best: "We have so much in this country that we aren't even grateful for.  People all over the world are dying because they don't have doctors, and here we whine about waiting a few hours for a routine check-up in a spotless hospital."
So I am thankful for America.  I am thankful that we suffer from overabundance rather than starvation.  I am thankful that all my sisters are safely here, not sold so my family could pay off a debt.  I am thankful that the police are capable and willing to capture criminals, rather than turning a blind eye or even participating in crimes.  I am thankful that I can have a box of Bibles in my closet, two on my shelf, and one in my bag, without being arrested or tortured or killed.  I am thankful that, even jobless, my family hasn't even begun to experience real poverty.

And all these, while beautiful and good and gracious, are gifts given to me only because, as Bono put it, I am an accident of latitude.  It seems only chance that I was born surrounded by doctors and nurses and family in a hospital that churned out babies daily like factory, instead of in the dirt floor of an isolated hut where no one heralded my arrival.
But, as we've clearly been told, there are no real accidents, and we are here for such a time as this.  These gifts we have been given are to be given again.  The desire is not that we are to be overfed while others suffer, but rather that there be equality for all.  We have been given freedom, yes, and with freedom comes a choice.  We can use our freedom in a way that benefits only ourselves, continuing to live in comfort and enjoying the pleasures that America has to offer.  Or we can use our freedom to help others, regardless of location, and to make equality a reality.

{Breaking Up: Fear}

Dear Fear,
We've been together a long time.  In fact, I think you were there at the hospital, right along with my grandparents in the pristine lobby, waiting for my wrinkled self to emerge so you could lay claim to me.  You kept an arm around me through all my growing-up years.  At first you kept me safe.  You wouldn't let me wander anywhere without my parents (which, in retrospect, may actually have been for the best).  You saved me years of scrapes and scars by making me hyperventilate at the thought of riding a bike until I was ten years old.  You are the reason I made up elaborate injuries to persuade my friends to play on the ground instead of racing to the treetops. I learned to recognize you as somewhere I could hide, a way I could stay safely inside my comfort zone and never, ever get hurt.  I trusted you.
As time went on, however, you became more and more controlling.  I feared punishment, so of course fourth-grade-me lied about cheating on that long-division test.  I feared rejection, so middle-school-me shifted her persona to be more acceptable to her peers, and when she was not, she retreated back into her lonely fortress.  I feared failure, so high-school-me molded herself into every image of success and found herself caught in a pursuit of meaningless glory that left her burnt-out and disgusted at the end.  Fear, it seems that wherever I turn, you are already there.
And I'm not going to do this anymore.  I found Someone else, Someone who says to be strong and very courageous.  I am not afraid to face myself anymore and admit my failures with honesty, because I now know that my shame has been borne by Another and my ugly everything is being made new.  I am not afraid of releasing my true identity to the scrutiny of the world, because I know that there is Someone who loves me and calls me a beloved creation formed after his own image.  I am not afraid to fall through the cracks of a rat-racing society and simply live by living simply, because now I know that I am judged successful based on how well I love, not on how well I stock my bank account.
We're done.  Thank you for keeping me safe, but I've found that safety does not reward.  Anything worth doing, worth being, requires a risk, and I can't afford to not take risks anymore.
I'm over you, Fear.  I'm in love - in Love - now, and so I'm casting you out because there is no fear in love.  You have no more place here.